Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

In the final hours of parliamentary sittings last year the government made the commitment that on the first sitting day this year, we would introduce into parliament legislation for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

Today I rise to do exactly that.

We said the bill introduced would be inclusive of the amendments agreed to by the coalition party room less than 10 weeks ago.

And that is what this bill contains.

Let me make it clear on behalf of the government that our position on the CPRS is based on five strong foundations:

Firstly, it reflects a scientific consensus, accepted by governments around the world, that climate change is real and happening now, and will inflict severe costs on this country.

Second, the government’s target for emissions reduction is both responsible and achievable and the CPRS is the best mechanism to achieve those targets.

Third, the CPRS is the lowest cost way to reduce emissions for Australian households.

Fourth, the CPRS is the most globally responsible approach to the threat of climate change—it ensures Australia meets its emissions reduction targets.

And fifth, the CPRS reflects the consistent policy of the government that formed a key element of our 2007 election platform that was supported by the Australian people.

The alternative approach offered by the opposition is nothing more than a pretend policy and it cannot be trusted.

Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, thinks climate change is, in his own words, ‘absolute crap’ and he has confirmed that again today.

The opposition leader’s climate change plan is nothing more than a climate con job.

It does less, costs more and will mean higher taxes.

There are three essential problems with the opposition leader’s climate con job.

Firstly, it will not work; it does not require anything of emitters of carbon pollution and there is no cap on carbon pollution.

Secondly, it slugs taxpayers instead of big polluters.

Thirdly, it is unfunded, inevitably meaning higher taxes.

The Tony Abbott climate con job does less, costs more and will mean higher taxes.

This is the contrast that the Australian parliament faces today.

Climate change science

It is extremely important, of course, that we take account of the climate change science.

Human induced emissions are increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2007 were nearly 40 per cent higher than those in 1990.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its 2007 fourth assessment report that:

… warming of the climate system is unequivocal—

and—

very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

Its findings are supported by the national science academies in all major developed and developing countries, including our own.

No government can ignore these findings. No political party or political leader can responsibly ignore the science.

The Australian government accepts that climate change is a reality and that we must act.

Despite the claims of many in the coalition, there is no evidence warming has stopped.

Globally, 14 of the 15 warmest years on record occurred between 1995 and 2009.

The Bureau of Meteorology reports that 2009 was the second hottest year on record in Australia.

The past decade was the hottest decade on record in Australia and globally.

The current Leader of the Opposition is risking Australia’s economic and environmental future by saying he is:

… hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change.

He made that statement on 27 July 2009.

Every other responsible political leader in Australia—including the former member for Bennelong and the member for Wentworth—has previously accepted the global scientific consensus and resolved to act in Australia’s national interest.

Impacts on Australia

The science shows that in future, without global action, the earth will continue to warm and sea levels will continue to rise.

Australia is already the driest inhabited continent on earth and is heavily exposed to the impacts of climate change.

Australia faces huge environmental and economic costs from climate change impacts, including on water security, agriculture, energy supply, health, coastal communities and infrastructure.

Climate change is already affecting water availability in Australia.

If global emissions continue unabated, irrigated agriculture—and the thousands of associated jobs—in the Murray-Darling Basin may well disappear by the end of the century.

Australia is a largely coastal society, with around 85 per cent of the population living in the coastal region. This means as many as 247,000 existing residential buildings valued at up to $63 billion are potentially at risk from a 1.1-metre sea level rise.

The Great Barrier Reef is already showing impacts of climate change through mass coral bleaching and could be effectively destroyed by mid-century if there is not action.

Climate change will affect the frequency and intensity of bushfires, heat waves and extreme tides in Australia.

We know only too well the impact that these events can have on the lives of others in our community.

Yet the Leader of the Opposition has rejected the science, mainstream conservative thinking and the best economic advice.

And he has rejected, therefore, acting in Australia’s national interest.

CPRS: the best mechanism

Australia’s emissions challenge is clear and it has bipartisan support, as we understand it.

In May last year the government set out its target range: a five per cent unconditional reduction, with up to 15 per cent and 25 per cent both conditional on the extent of action by others.

This target range was supported by the coalition at the time and reaffirmed on 2 December 2009 by the office of the Leader of the Opposition:

The Coalition is committed to the bipartisan targets as they currently stand.

The challenge posed by those targets is clear:

• In 2020 Australia’s emissions are projected to be 664 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent; and
• At a five per cent target, Australia’s emissions reduction challenge is to reduce 2020 emissions by 138 million tonnes; at a 15 per cent target, the challenge is 194 million tonnes; and at 25 per cent, the challenge is 249 million tonnes.

That is the challenge that both political parties—both sides of politics—have committed to on the grounds that there is a bipartisan position concerning the targeted cuts in emissions by 2020.

The debate today, therefore, should fundamentally be about how best to rise to that bipartisan challenge.

On this front, the Howard government’s Shergold report, the Garnaut review and the United Kingdom government’s Stern report all canvassed different approaches to taking action to achieve emission reductions and came to the same conclusion that an emissions trading scheme is the lowest cost and most effective mechanism to deal with climate change.

Even the current Leader of the Opposition in his 2009 book Battlelines acknowledged that:

The Howard Government—

in 2007—

proposed an emissions trading scheme because this seemed the best way to obtain the highest emission reduction at the lowest cost.

That appears at page 171 of the book of the member for Warringah called Battlelines.

The business community also recognises the value of the emissions trading approach. The Business Council of Australia has said:

… the best way for Australia to transition to a low-emissions economy is through a market-based emissions trading scheme—

and the international community accepts that view. Thirty-two countries around the world already have emissions trading schemes, and others, including the US, Japan and Korea, are developing such schemes currently.

Virtually no other developed economy in the world agrees with the opposition leader’s more recent rejection of emissions trading.

And there is a simple reason why, and that is that emissions trading is the most effective and lowest cost means to reduce carbon emissions.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme requires emitters to buy a permit for each tonne of carbon pollution they produce.

The government will determine the number of permits that will be available each year and, by doing so, will set a cap on pollution levels.

A cap each year allows a targeted reduction in emissions to be achieved over time.

A carbon price is established, therefore, by the auctioning and trading of permits.

The carbon price creates an incentive for polluters to reduce their emissions in the cheapest, most efficient way.

After dismissing the CPRS, the current Leader of the Opposition has proposed what he calls a ‘direct action’ policy as an alternative—but it is a con job.

His plan lets polluters off the hook and shifts the burden to ordinary families.

The fact is no cobbled-together list of subsidies, as outlined in opposition leader’s policy announced today, could ever hope to match the effectiveness of putting a clear price and cap on carbon pollution across the economy because, unlike the CPRS, the opposition leader’s policy is less effective. It will not work.

It will cost more because it does not create incentives to find the low-cost methods to reduce emissions. It is a ‘pick winners’ approach.

It also has no cap on emissions; it therefore cannot guarantee to meet an emissions reduction target.

The opposition leader’s position also cannot link to international markets to take advantage of cost-effective emissions reductions in other countries, and it will shift the cost of emissions reductions from big emitters of carbon pollution to households.

Finally, the proposal does not provide compensation to pensioners, careers and low- and middle-income households, something to which the government has paid particular attention.

Former Prime Minister John Howard’s own Shergold report found that relying on subsidies alone to reduce emissions will be more expensive than a market based approach like the CPRS.

Likewise, Professor Garnaut concluded that without a carbon price, the cost of achieving emissions reductions will be much higher.

Lowest cost way to reduce emissions

The government, for its part, is determined to implement a scheme which tackles climate change at the lowest cost. Ultimately there is no cost-free way of reducing carbon emissions and tackling climate change.

Any politician who tells the community otherwise is simply not telling the truth—and cannot be trusted. The Leader of the Opposition, in announcing the coalition’s policy, stated it would not cost the community and it would not cost jobs. It is a position that defies rational thought. It is not true.

The fact is the CPRS is the lowest cost way of reducing emissions.

It also imposes the lowest costs on Australian families.

The impact on household costs will be just above a one per cent price rise.

The average price impact of the CPRS on households is estimated at around $624 per year by 2013 for the average household.

Around 90 per cent of all households under the proposals for the CPRS will receive assistance—on average that will be around $660 per year.

All pensioners and low-income households will be fully assisted.

That is because the money raised from emitters of carbon pollution, who have a liability to purchase permits, will be used to assist working families with the price increases under the scheme.

The CPRS is globally responsible

Any country that accepts the science, as I said before, and the threat that climate change represents has a responsibility to act.

No country can address this problem alone—it will require an unprecedented level of international cooperation.

The government has said that Australia will do its fair share as part of the global effort—we will do no more and no less than other countries.

Last December, the world met in Copenhagen as part of the effort to forge a global agreement to tackle climate change.

The outcome, called the Copenhagen accord, is less than we, and like-minded countries, wanted.

But it is an important step forward towards coordinated global action on climate change.

For the first time, leaders of both developed and developing countries have agreed to:

• specify emissions reduction targets or actions by both major developed and developing nations;
• limit global warming to less than two degrees;
• provide the finance necessary to support mitigation and adaptation action in developing countries; and
• measurement, reporting and verification by both developed and developing countries.

However, the Copenhagen conference also left much work to do and Australia remains committed to achieving a comprehensive agreement under the UNFCCC.

Countries are already acting and Australia is by no means going it alone.

Thirty-two countries already have emission trading schemes and others are developing their own.

Others including the US, China, and India have set targets and are taking climate action.

In recognition that the Copenhagen accord did not deliver a final binding treaty, the government has said that we will not increase Australia’s emissions reduction target above five per cent until three conditions are met:

• the level of global ambition becomes sufficiently clear;
• the credibility of those commitments and actions is established; and
• there is clarity on the assumptions for emissions accounting and access to markets.

The government’s aim and intention is to reach conclusion on these matters of course in partnership internationally as soon as possible.

A consistent and responsible approach to climate change

The CPRS is the principal mechanism by which we will achieve our targets and act on climate change in the national interest. It is the only fundamental foundational mechanism by which we will achieve the targeted reduction that I averted to earlier, 138 million tonnes by the year 2020 to achieve the five per cent reduction.

But we have also put in place around $15 billion in complementary measures to assist the transition to a low-carbon economy and increase the demand for low-pollution jobs. These are very important measures. They include:

• increasing the renewable energy target to 20 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by the year 2020;
• support for energy efficiency, including $3.2 billion for insulation and solar and heat pump hot water systems;
• $4.5 billion for industrial scale carbon capture and storage and large scale solar power generation;
• the Australian Climate Change Science Framework to set climate change research policies; and
• $126 million Climate Change Adaptation Program to better manage climate change impacts.

However, projections show that even with these measures Australia’s emissions will continue to rise, reaching 120 per cent of 2000 levels in 2020.

That is why we need a substantial, economy-wide approach that reduces emissions in the most efficient lowest cost mechanism possible.

For the last three years, Labor both in opposition and in government has backed the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme as the most effective and lowest cost means to reduce carbon pollution.

The current Leader of the Opposition has had five different positions on this issue. The government has been consistent and the new Leader of the Opposition completely inconsistent on this issue.

He supported emissions trading during the Howard government period when the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, concluded and made absolutely clear that the science demanded a response from government and that the lowest cost most efficient mechanism for achieving targeted emission reductions was an emissions trading scheme.

As part of that government the now Leader of the Opposition accepted that position. Then of course when it was opportune to afford him the opportunity to drag down the then Leader of the Opposition, the member for Wentworth, the now Leader of the Opposition claimed that climate change was ‘absolute crap’.

Then he said at one point that the Liberals should support the CPRS unamended. Then he demanded amendments to the legislation last year when it was previously in a different form before the parliament.

And now he opposes the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in totality for his own political gain.

Indeed, in his own words, the opposition leader has described himself as a ‘weather vane’ on climate change. He shifts around on the most important public policy challenge that we face.

It is the responsibility of any political leadership figure in this country to adopt a credible position and he has already failed that test.

His erratic approach now forms Liberal Party policy.

And you cannot trust a leader on issues like this if he thinks the climate science, the subject of considered peer review work by many, many scientists around the world that have stood up to intense scrutiny, is ‘absolute crap’. His position cannot be respected.

What we know is that the Leader of the Opposition does not accept the climate science and he is looking for a political fig leaf. Hence we see the policy position that has announced today and it cannot work.

What will work is an emissions trading scheme in the form of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Conclusion

The government respects the climate science and the need to act.

Our position has been consistent for years.

And we are acting in an economically responsible manner seeking the most effective and lowest cost means to achieve targeted emissions reduction.

The bills before the House today establish a clear framework to tackle this great challenge.

If the opposition still has any credibility, character or consistency, they will support this legislation based on the agreement that was endorsed by the coalition party room less than 10 weeks ago.

That was a credible stance to engage responsibly on behalf of the Australian community with the government to negotiate amendments and agree to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to secure passage of the legislation.

The responsible stance that the former Leader of the Opposition took on that issue on behalf of the community led to him being torn down as the Leader of the Opposition for politically opportunist reasons. What we now see from the opposition is a completely unrealistic, unworkable, incredible, economically irresponsible policy response.

What this country needs to deal with climate change is an emissions trading scheme to achieve the least cost emissions reductions.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Coulton) adjourned.